Casual Restos: SuWu

SuWu ticks off the hipster checklist in terms of decor.John Kenney
/ John Kenney / THE GAZETTE

Accoutrements for the Cobb salad come in a separate jar, colourfully layered with avocado, blue cheese, chunks of lardons and chopped hard-boiled egg.John Kenney
/ John Kenney / THE GAZETTE

The mac ’n’ cheese sandwich is oozing with cream and perked up with spring onions. Homemade pogos come cutely plugged into a wooden block. The hipster-approved Cobb salad is fun, and cocktails, like the house Caesar, are on point.John Kenney
/ John Kenney / THE GAZETTE

Communal tables, walls of barn wood and the mounted head of a carousel horse are some of the on-trend fixtures at SuWu.John Kenney
/ John Kenney / THE GAZETTE

MONTREAL - If there is an algorithm that entrepreneurs could use to build an aspiring “hipster restaurant,” it may well have been used in the creation of SuWu, a recent addition to the Main’s bar scene. Looking around as we walked past the blackboard menu of bubblies (tick), took our seats at one of the tall communal tables (tick) next to the gleaming subway tile (tick), we recited a virtual checklist of on-trend fixtures: Edison bulbs. Mason jars. Reclaimed barn wood on the walls. Ironic taxidermy (in this case, the mounted head of a carousel horse). Old-school hip hop on the sound system. A requisite reference to Brooklyn among cheekily named cocktails. Natural wines on the drink list. And an open kitchen that turns out comfort food — the next generation. SuWu ticks all those boxes, and then some.

The menu reads like a database of recent food trends reorganized for search engine optimization: Cheeseburger empanadas with Thousand Island dressing; meatball sub tacos; truffle oil popcorn; and the mandatory poutine, personalized with rye sauce and green peppercorns. And there is mac ’n’ cheese, but of course. Putting it in a grilled cheese sandwich sounded gimmicky — gross, even — but we had to try it. Oozing with cream, perked up with spring onions beneath the browned, buttery surface of the bread, it was more than a pale yellow starchfest. It overkilled us softly.

I enjoyed most of the dishes that hit the table, more than I expected to. The Cobb salad, yet another signifier in the realm of hipster dining, was fun. Accoutrements came in a separate jar, colourfully layered with avocado, blue cheese, chunks of lardons and chopped hard-boiled egg. (Smart move, separating the yolk and white to keep it looking clean.) You pour in the vinaigrette, shake it up, empty the dressed ingredients onto the bed of lettuce and grilled chicken, and mix it all together. Brightened by that tongue-snapping blue cheese and vinegar, this was a more than decent salad, especially in a bar context where it’s refreshing to get something green, crunchy and fresh.

Also fun: an order of homemade pogos came cutely plugged into a wooden block, like some kind of tiki sculpture. The hotdogs were more like home-battered, in a fresh, fluffy, doughnut-like coating, with ranch sauce for dipping. (I missed the mustard just a little bit.)

On a plate of ribs and potato salad, the star wasn’t the meat — although it was tender and easy to dislodge from the bone, in a sweet and tangy barbecue sauce that wanted some back heat. It was the firm-to-the-tooth tiny spuds in their creamy mustard seed and herb coating.

The one real miss was the top recommendation from our server: chicken and biscuits. Those two word generate some serious expectations, and the added promise of kimchee had me geared up. What we got tasted like 3 a.m. falafel. Fried flavours and creamy gribiche overwhelmed any hot and sour kimchee notes. Plus, the biscuit had already broken apart, making it awkward to handle.

Dessert was kids’ stuff. If the chocolate-stuffed Rice Krispie “panini” didn’t wow me — it was tough on the teeth and one-dimensional in taste — it might have been better appreciated without the Rolling Rock we were finishing up.

SuWu had some surprises, and some contradictions. The drinks list, for example, is long on natural wines. It’s intriguing that the place has aligned itself with the growing movement toward minimal-intervention, as-nature-intended wineries, but I’m not sure the focus really fits the place. It’s at odds with the beer selection, which demonstrates completely different ethics. In lieu of Quebec’s craft scene, mass-production and overseas breweries are represented on tap: Stella, Boddingtons and a house session beer that we were told was brewed by Labatt.

All in all, this was a fun place to spend a few hours — and for most of those hours, we could actually hear each other talk without straining. It’s a more food-oriented spot than a person would think stepping into the room (word is there are Toqué! alum working in the kitchen). It’s certainly a total transformation of long-running resto bar Cafeteria, which hung on for years at this address. It made sense to hear that owners Nathan Gannage and Zach Macklovitch have their hands in event management, under the name Saint Woods. Their investment here is a step up for this devolving strip of St-Laurent Blvd. For now, SuWu is showing more commitment to quality than a lot of places on the block — this particular block, and a few others in town.

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